Our office telephone system also has an inter office instant messaging system. This system allows you to show a status, such as “busy”, “away”, “lunch”, etc. We have been told by our HR person that if we step away from our desk we must put a status up, and we are not allowed to simply use “away”, but must say why we are away from our desk, such as “in the restroom”.

I can understand the need for others to be made aware when we will be away from our desk for more than a few minutes, but is this legal to require us to make our entire office aware of when we are using the RESTROOM?

Posted  09-23-2011

Ann Kiernan replies:

I agree that is way too much information! How about “away-on break”?

 

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